A few weeks has passed since my last posting and it seems like there are some signs of spring. Although there hasn't been much physical progress on the house, some decisions and meetings have been made so things are brewing in the background.
There's still ice on the lake but the snow has melted on the LiteDeck and surrounding land. That doesn't mean that the night time temperatures allow for slab pouring though. It's still too cold to do that. Hopefully we'll get some warmer weather in here soon. I ventured out onto the LiteDeck for this picture. It shows where the wrap around porch will be.
One issue that arose is that since we increased the basement height by 2 ft, to a 10ft depth, and we went with the LiteDeck system, the garage slab would require 4-5 steps into the house. At this height differential, the easier solutions were to create a curb in the garage to break up the steps and offer a landing. Another option was to construct the stairs from wood, and have a platform in front of the door. The only problem with this is that there's another door closer to the front of the garage that access a storage space so there would have to be two stairs. Another thought is that since this will be our primary egress, we'll have to go up and down those 5 steps every day for the rest of our lives. That doesn't sound like much now, but when we're older, it could be trouble.
The solution we decided upon is to raise the garage slab by one more course of ICF, or 12". The height of the garage was already increased to keep the roof line with the front porch. Instead of a thick header, the header will be thinner and we'll raise the slab and surrounding grade up. Of course this means more money for fill in front, back and inside the garage. Another repercussion is that a steel beam header will need to be installed where the ICF would have been across the large door. The ICF can't structurally span that opening at the thickness we were reducing it to. The header across all the other doors were fine.
Raising the garage slab height by 12" reduced the number of steps from 5 - 8" steps to 3-7.5" steps. I'm sure it will be one of those things that we'll be glad we did. This will also reduce the number of steps to the front and mudroom doors.
Although the LiteDeck can support my weight, especially with the 2x6 joists, it's still scary for me to walk on. My sense of scale is still messed up because standing on this, it doesn't feel like 2500 square feet.
The last footing was poured for the portion of the wrap around deck next to the garage. A beam will fit into that pocket in the garage wall and be supported by that footing.
Long shot of the house from the future driveway. Crisp clear spring day.
Since we raised the garage slab by a foot, I'm pretty sure the window in the gable end will need to be raised up too. There's a nice little alcove we're thinking about tucking a potting bench into. We can overwinter plants in there since it's ICF. We're not planning on conditioning this space so delicate plants will still need to come inside. It will make a great place for seeding greenhouses too.
Back porch and gazebo. Some of this dirt will be taken out, but not enough for tall storage. I might be able to store some long items in this area.
Here, I'm standing on the LiteDeck that will be our greatroom. Those three trees will probably be removed in the future since one is leaning and one is dead. It will improve the view for the wall of windows we're going to have here.
Back yard showing the greatroom on the right and the garage on the left. Nothing exciting, but dreams are being made here.
We also had a walk around with a landscaping company so we can get a preliminary design. It was a great experience and if we decide to go with them, I'll post more information. They seem very high class and expensive.
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